Preparing for a new Government ADASS Conference April 2010 Paul Corrigan

Preparing for a new Government Its always disappointing how little they know compared to you Post election The interaction between Policy Politics and Resource Policy Politics Resource Three different outcomes of this And how do you ‘prepare’ for this?

And how do you prepare for this? No one knows who is going to get how many seats or who will form the next Government. No one knows what that next Government will do. There are parameters of likeliness all of which have less state money going into local government ( and a council tax freeze) Therefore the real development to prepare for is NOT who wins the election but, given rising demand, but how to create significantly better outputs and outcomes for less public resource

Its always disappointing how little they know compared to you Democratic politicians much of their lives with the electorate and only a small part of it governing. They need to be experts on politics and not on government With 2 weeks to go no politician really knows what they will be doing in government. A few Cabinet members have very clear hopes but until the votes are counted its morally wrong to think you know. The second most difficult thing a politician does is win an election and the next day they do the most difficult thing running the country

The interaction between three pressures Policy does not determine what a Government does Especially in 2010 there is an interaction between POLICY POLITICS PUBLIC EXPENDITURE The outcome is squeezed out from between these three pressures

1Policy only one of three pressures Conservatives We will allow anyone to protect their home from being sold to fund residential care by paying a one off insurance premium that is entirely voluntary. We will work to design a system where people can top up their premium also voluntarily to cover the costs of receiving care in their own home. Labour We will establish a new National Care Service working in partnership with the NHS to transform the way care is provided to the elderly and disabled people Liberal Democrats We will establish an independent commission with cross party support to develop proposals for long term care for the elderly

2Politics Conservative – Deficit needs immediate attack. Local Government an important political base but.. The Big Society rolling back the state and much greater individual involvement. Labour- Immediate policy to continue the reflation from public expenditure The enabling state intervening and supporting Liberal Democrats Immediate cuts The power of local government intervention

3Public expenditure Week one “Its much much worse than we thought” Week two Emergency Budget VAT rise and review of all current expenditure and all new policies HMT wants line of sight on every pound of all current and future expenditure If NHS spending is safe then the average cuts for all other public expenditure be about 4% every year HMT runs this through the Cabinet and Whitehall with rigour

Three different outcomes of the election 1A political party wins. They will be confronted by the deficit on day two and any interaction between politics and policy 2The Treasury wins the election They have a machinery ready to reach into all public expenditure and policy. But some politics will be stronger than them (e.g. NHS) 3There is a hung Parliament There is a very considerable problem with international finance unless there is a strong government intervention